Recapping CES 2017

Last week, 200,000 people from across the world descended on Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. The modern day version of CES is a little over 10 years old. What was originally, a must see conference for major technology companies to announce new products, has now become the place for technology, marketing and devices to converge.

I joined the other 199,999 attendees, along with our agency partners. We spent 3 solid days meeting with potential partners, existing partners and partners reinventing themselves for the future. In addition to roughly a dozen meetings, we also walked the trade floor, soaked up knowledge via panels and keynotes and spoke with leaders at companies ranging from QSR, telecom, fashion and everything in between.

To say, we absorbed a lot, would be an understatement. There’s already a lot of great CES recaps out there. I encourage you to checkout the hubs from The Verge and TechCrunch. They both did a great job of organizing the key themes, best innovations and biggest flops.

While The Verge and TechCrunch are covering everything, I’m going to focus on the themes and findings that resonated with me and that I’m taking into the office.

CES 2017 was more evolution than revolution. During a panel with Dennis Crowley, the Chairman of Foursquare, it was stated: “2015 was the year of VR, 2016 was the year of VR and 2017 is the year of VR.” The point being that in 2015 it was VR for early adopters. In 2016 it was VR for developers. And in 2017 it’s 2017 for consumers. That continued iteration of a trend was present across just about every area of technology. For example, we are seeing more and more internet of things devices. They are becoming more mainstream. Though, just because it’s becoming more mainstream, doesn’t mean it’s becoming more practical or useful. For example, how many of you always wanted a wifi trash can or a hairbrush that acts like a pedometer to help you improve your hair quality?

With that continued evolution of internet connecting devices, there are now more ways than ever before for people to consume content. This is a gift and a curse for marketers. Yes, there are more ways to provide value, but there are also more ways to interrupt the consumer. Additionally, the marketing landscape becomes increasingly more fragmented, making it even more challenging to measure impact and return.

A major topic across the conference was security, privacy and data sharing. All those connected devices are becoming smarter. For example your Nest Thermostat learns your heating and cooling habits, eliminating the need for you to set the temperature. This removes friction. But, how does that happen? It happens, because people are sharing and providing those devices more and more personal information (even if they don’t realize it). There are edge cases, already that are pushing the limits of what devices know about you and how valuable that information is. For example, data from a consumer’s Amazon’s Alexa account is being subpoenaed as part of a murder investigation. In the health category, companies like FitBit, Qualcomm and United Healthcare are striking partnerships that bring about major cash incentives for sharing your data.

If there was a major buzzword from CES 2017, it was “immersive” – This is a catch all term for Virtual Reality, voice input (e.g. Alexa and Google Home), Augmented Reality (e.g. Pokémon Go) and smart accessories/clothing (e.g. Snapchat spectacles). This is all about technology finally becoming something that enhances your daily life without the need to use your phone, necessarily. One could argue “immersive” is just a fancy way to say, “customer experience.” The customer experience is not linear and it’s not single device driven; it us however a convergence of the real world and technology.

For the first time in recent years, mobile was not being seen as the future or an enhancer. If anything, there was more discussion about mobile phones holding back the future. If 5 years ago, the question was, “what’s your app strategy?” and 2 years ago it was “are you a mobile first company?”, this year it was, “how are you thinking about mobility?” To that end, there was even an entire track of presentations and panels on this topic. A truly mobile 1st organization does not think in siloed roadmaps or experiences. It does not differentiate between digital and the in-store aisle. A mobile 1st organization recognizes that it’s the experience that’s mobile, not the device. Said another way, when product, marketing, design and data come together you are not bound by any one device or screen. The near-term mobility battleground is the car. While we’re years, if not decades from mass autonomous vehicle adoption, we are already in a world, where our cars are the most technology advanced mobile device in our household.

Those are the major takeaways I had. Yes, there were robots and drones and cameras. But, there wasn’t anything from those categories that was revolutionary and ready for mainstream.

Additionally, while Amazon did not have a booth, did not demo a product, did not host an event, they are the most present and talked about company. If you were releasing a new IOT product, you were touting an Alexa integration. If you were talking about streaming, content and publishing you were talking about Amazon Fire and Amazon Originals. The former Walmart digital executive really nailed it when he said, “if you’re a retailer focused on retail and not on becoming a platform, you’ll be Sears in 10 years.”

Lastly, CES left me with 2 big questions, that I don’t have answers to, but certainly make me think about the future of marketing.

The debate on cord cutting is over. It’s happened. Amazon, HBO, Netflix and others commanding your time and dollars. None of them have commercials. None of them have advertising package for companies like us to purchase. Every hour we spend in Netflix and not in traditional TV, increases the pressure for other advertising options to work better.

In a world where content is dynamically created and programmatically distributed, what harm are we doing to “brand”, as we chase efficiency. A marketer at Clorox shared, on a panel, that she can’t avoid selling through Amazon. The upside to Amazon is auto-reorder, which eliminates competition at shelf. But, it also reduces the impact of all the effort put into building a brand. Clorox, if you will, becomes a commodity.

Much thanks for reading through all of this. Trust me, this was the short version.

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Dad to Cora and John. Love ironing, bourbon and BBQ; not necessarily in that order. Living life, like I stole it. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
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